July 26, 2004

Outfoxed and Glick

Julie came over this weekend and we all watched “Outfoxed.” It’s got some pretty amazing moments, and it pulls some of the worst biased FOX activities all together. However, you can just watch about 10 minutes of Fox News and come to the same conclusions if you’re paying attention.

The most dramatic portion of the film was when O’Reilly (the wanker) had Jeremy Glick on his show. A 9/11 family member after having lost his father, O’Reilly proceeded to verbally abuse the boy because Glick took him to task for using the memory of his father and so many others. And also because O’Reilly simply disagreed with him.

Well, if you want to read about it, here’s Lawrence Lessig’s recent appeal to O’Reilly to come to his senses, as O’Reilly continues to plumb the depths of conservative media inanity:

Isn't it horrifying? The way he treated Glick in person was bad enough. But if I hadn't read Al Franken's book, I would never have been prepared for O'Reilly's ever-morphing description of the encounter afterwards.

"A child with a history of chronic lying should be seen by a counselor, child-guidance clinic or a mental-health professional. Chronic liars often have had difficulty establishing a true conscience that can clearly differentiate between right and wrong. These children also may be crying out for help because of disturbances in their family life or outside the home."

An intervention would be nice. Let's start with those "Fox and Friends" drones.

Musing on "O'Reilly-like behavior" -- I think I have a new phrase to express the particular combination of belligerence, arrogance, ignorance, and distortion that Fox espouses onscreen and, sadly, encourages in its viewers.

We'll start seeing this pop up on drug warning labels and in drug commercials. And on TVs tuned to Fox.

"WARNING: May induce O'Reilly-like behavior. Symptoms may include sputtering, cutting people off, telling people to 'shut up' shouting, an inability to separate fact from fiction, facial blotchiness, and a fear of other people's views."